As a birdwatcher, I can honestly say I have never seen it before and I don’t know if I will ever see it again, at least in that magnitude I’d wager to guess.
What I am talking about is a couple of days ago while doing some birdwatching on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route I unexpectedly came across several hundred snowy egrets sitting in a few distinct flocks on the very southeast corner of the auto loop.
Being that fall migration is now firmly upon us, it’s not uncommon to see birds congregate by species before they migrate south for the winter.
What is uncommon, at least for me that is, stems from seeing so many snowy egrets in one particular location on the bird refuge auto loop like this.
Now don’t get me wrong about this, however, I have seen snowy egrets in small to moderate-sized flocks before on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, sometimes comprising a few dozen birds or so.
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But I’ve honestly never seen hundreds of snowy egrets in one general area like I did the other day on the bird refuge.
All those perfectly white plumaged birds taking to the air all at once was nothing short of what I would call, well, breathtaking, to say the least.
And for much of the drive back to the main parking lot, many of the snowy egrets that suddenly erupted in flight when I hit the southeast corner eventually settled in along the canal that parallels the west side of the gravel road so I was privileged to see many of them one more time as I drove back to the paved parking lot.
The images I was able to photograph and post here on this blog are only a mere morsel, a tiny sliver, of sorts, of what I actually witnessed on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route that particular morning.
Many of the snowy egrets flew off before I could get out of the car and take a few photos of this rather large gathering of birds.
But even so, I was able to quickly grab a few images with my camera of a couple of the smaller flocks of the egrets that stayed put for a moment or two before they too flew off and dispersed elsewhere on the refuge.
It won’t be too much longer before migratory birds such as the snowy egret head south for the winter, only to be seen again in this neck of the woods when spring returns for yet another year of summer birdwatching on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
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(Sphinx Moth Feeding On A Sunflower. For short nature clips like this one and interesting stories about the natural world around us, check out our Bear River Blogger channel on YouTube for videos and updates from our travels while out in nature, both on and off of the famed Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.)
